A Rainy Day
by The 8th Stone
Summary: 'His vision was blurred by the heavy raindrops and perhaps his own tears.' The reality of this Clue Hunt - this is what is left.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the 39 Clues

**A/N:** In case you didn't read the summary, this is for Luver. of. Pie.'s Tearjerker Contest. (I wrote it in a rush, so it is sort of messy and not grammar-checked. Originally, I wrote another Fanfic for this based on _Romeo and Juliet_, but it got too long, so I wrote this.)

* * *

A Rainy Day

"I'm sorry," Ian said.

"You're not."

He couldn't deny that. There was nothing for him left to say.

"Dan! You killed Dan! He was my brother. He was the only real family I had left . . ." Amy broke into sobs. "Well? Did you come here to gloat? Did you come here just to make me cry again? So you've won, Ian Kabra. So you've won. What can you do about it?"

Nothing. There was nothing that he could do. He could only stare into space for what he had done. Images flashed through his mind. Dan Cahill, cornered at the edge of the cliff. Dan Cahill, refusing to give up the last Clue, refusing to tell him about Amy's whereabouts. Dan Cahill, slipping at the edge of the cliff and falling, downwards, into his doom.

_My first murder,_ Ian had thought. _My first murder. I am a murderer now._

The Kabras had won the 39 Clues, leaving Amy to mourn for her brother's death. There was nothing she could do except to cry on her brother's funeral.

"You don't understand! I've never meant to . . . I didn't want to do it, Amy—"

"Oh, so now I'm 'Amy'? What? No more lies and mockery at the poor stuttering girl? What is this, a Lucian showing his true colors as a, as a . . . KILLER?" she screamed out the last word. "Nothing you say will convince me now, Kabra. Nothing will be good enough."

With that, she covered her face in her hands and continued to sob.

A drop of rain fell from the sky, landing on Ian's forehead. It slid down and trailed the corner of his eye before landing on his knee. Another drop fell from the sky. Soon rain was falling hard. People in the park started to scatter away, picking up their picnic trays and Frisbees, leaving the two alone in the cold shower.

Ian's usually neat hair was now matted against his brows, giving him sad and wet look of a stray puppy. He stood up from the park bench and put a hand on her shoulder, which was instantly pushed away.

"Don't touch me!" She took a step away. "Don't, Ian . . . don't . . . Leave me alone . . ."

"No, Amy. It wasn't my fault," he pleaded. "You must understand. My parents! They had ordered me to do this . . ."

Amy, not wanting to hear anymore, turned and ran away from him. Ian tried to follow, but she was already far away. Before disappearing out of sight, Amy turned back and screamed out loudly, "I HATE YOU, IAN KABRA!"

He ran and ran, but Amy was nowhere to be seen. Several times, he tripped over a stray tree root or a small rock. After a while, his suit was covered with mud and his face was cut and scratched from stray branches overhead, but he kept going on. His vision was blurred by the heavy raindrops and perhaps his own tears. Soon, one of his feet was caught in a small ditch and he fell. He didn't get up. He simply laid there, imagining himself never being born. He imagined himself to be washed away by the rain. To disappear in a world of nothingness.

Tears flooded out of his eyes, the first time in fourteen years. Once they started, it couldn't be stopped. He let them flow down his cheeks.

Overhead, the downpour continued. The sun was covered by the gray clouds that seemed to never stop raining.

. . .

The door opened.

Nellie jumped up at once, then ran to hug Amy.

"Oh! I was so worried! I thought that you had got kidnapped or something . . ."

She glanced down, realizing that Amy hadn't spoke.

"You look terrible, kiddo, are you alright?" she asked.

Amy shook her head and tried to smile. "No, it's nothing. I just ran into . . . an old acquaintance, that's all." She took a change of clothes and headed into the shower.

In the hot water, she was able to think, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Inevitably, her mind led her to Ian. Her feelings for him were mixed with anger and grief for Dan. Thinking about Dan brought a hollow feeling inside her chest. She still couldn't believe that he was gone.

After crying so much, Amy felt relatively calm. Thoughts seemed to bounce off her head without actually entering her brain. This new numbness suited her better. Feeling nothing was better than feeling so much pain all the time.

As she stepped out of the bathroom, Nellie looked at her with pitying eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head no and went to bed.

. . .

"Hello, Ian," Natalie said absentmindedly as she blew on her newly polished nails.

She looked up, expecting at least some form of sarcastic comment from him. When she did, she almost thought some homeless guy had intruded the house. There was no need to describe him. He simply looked . . . terrible.

"Ian . . .?" she asked hesitantly.

Ian didn't say anything. He went by Natalie and walked into his room. With her keen ears, Natalie could hear the noise of a pencil scribbling fiercely on a piece of paper. A second later, he came out again.

"Ian, are you . . . alright?" She winced at her own words. It wasn't everyday that a Lucian would play sympathy on others. She just hoped Isabel wasn't somewhere in here to hear this.

When she looked up from the chair again, he was gone.

This all Natalie found very suspicious, especially the part when Ian came in. She may be the spoiled princess, but Natalie wasn't stupid. The last time she saw him like that, it was after they locked those Cahills in that cave in Korea. _Ridiculous,_ she thought. There was no way . . .

Still, it was all very strange and, as she had thought, suspicious. She went to his room and turned the handle of the door. It was locked.

Her suspicion grew into puzzlement. Why had Ian locked the door? No matter. Natalie took out a bobby pin from her expensively groomed black hair. She was a master lock-picker, a trade she found very useful.

_Click_. The door opened. Once Natalie checked her nails once more to be sure that it wasn't broken, she went in.

There was nothing unusual in the room except for muddy footprints on the floor which she took great care to veer away from. She walked to his desk and found a small piece of paper by a pencil in Ian's rash handwriting.

There was just one word on it, simple and easy:

_Goodbye._

. . .

Amy woke in the middle of the night with a bad headache. But it wasn't the pain that had awoken her, it was a dream.

She groaned and put her head in between her knees. What it was about again? Fragments of the dream came into her mind.

There was Dan. Definitely Dan. But in this dream, unlike the others she had about him, Dan was eleven again. And he said something. Something about the Clues.

_"The 39 Clues has killed me already, don't let it kill another."_

In that very instant, her brain flashed code red. Amy scrambled off her bed and flew to the door. There was only one thing in her mind:

Ian.

. . .

The morning mist was thick and heavy in Boston that day. Sunshine was covered by the clouds overhead, and though the rain had stopped, it had shrouded the city with its dark and gloom.

A lone figure had approached the vacant city grave. Pass the gate, he stepped silently through the land of the death and stopped in front of a small and fresh tombstone. Though the man was covered in rags and tatters, one could never have mistaken him for a grave robber. For one thing, the clothes he wore were filthy but clearly designer. For the other, this was Ian Kabra. His beautiful physical features could still stun a single lady from a distance, though at the moment it was covered with sorrow and regret, much like how his expensive suit was covered with dirt and grime.

There were no tears in his eyes; they had all but run out. In his heart, though, was true sadness. He had never intended for this to happen. Despite being a Lucian, he had never had the heart to kill.

Footsteps approached him. Sensing movement, he turned. Just as sudden as he had came, Ian left, as if simply vanishing out of sight. Another figure had replaced his. It was Amy. She looked down at her brother's grave and her eyes widened, as if her suspicions were proven to be correct. She knelt down and followed a series of footprints before running off again.

Beside Daniel Cahill's tombstone was a fresh bouquet of flowers.

. . .

The sea breeze blew hard that day, and the beach was empty of people. Not even a single seagull to be seen. Even with the wind blowing so hard, the gray clouds were still and unmoving, determined to block out the sun for this occasion. Huge waves crashed into the surf and dissolved into foams.

_How sad it is for me to die today_, Ian thought as he unscrewed the small, liquid-filled bottle.

. . .

Amy tore through the woods, desperately running to reach what could not be reached, all of the time screaming out, "Ian! Ian!"

She was out of the woods and on the beach. Her shoes were sinking into the sand, slowing her pace. Her lungs were gasping for oxygen, her heart was threatening to stop, but her only conscious thought was to find Ian.

She never stopped. Even with her limbs burning up, or the howling wind blowing across her face in an attempt to stop her, she continued to run.

Her foot landed on wetter, more stabilized ground, and she ran faster. Then, she found him. In the middle of nowhere, he stood as straight as a post, his head faced the ocean.

"Ian!" she cried, more out of relief than urgency. "Ian!" Maybe she was wrong after all. Maybe the dream was just a dream. Her pace slowed.

But something was wrong. Ian wasn't moving, but was standing still in a very unnatural way. The wind blew once more, and the figure swayed back and forth once before falling to the ground.

"IAN! NO!"

Using all the energy she could muster, Amy half crawled towards Ian, but it was too late. Already, he stopped breathing. Amy listened to his heart rate, which was slowing.

Tears. What strange things. Just when you thought that you had already cried out, they just come popping out of your eyes.

Tears flowed down once more from her eyes as she knelt before him.

. . .

Just before he died, Ian had a dream. Not exactly a nightmare, really. It was rather pleasant in a sad way.

He dreamed that Amy was by his side once more. Everything seemed to be cast in a soft golden light. Amy was beautiful, as beautiful as he had remembered. It was nice to see her one last time again, though it appeared that she was crying. Ian frowned. He didn't like to see her cry again.

"Amy," he said. Immediately she stopped crying and turned to look at him.

"Amy," he repeated, feeling weaker and weaker by every second. "Can I tell you something? You will believe me, don't you?"

"Yes," Amy replied. He could feel the warmth from her hand as she held his. He felt oddly peaceful.

"Amy, I just want . . . I just want to tell you that I love you. Always."

A single tear fell out of her bright jade eyes.

"Yes, of course," she said. Amy leaned down to kiss him. "I love you too."

Ian remembered smiling. Then his eyelids grew heavier and heavier until it closed to an eternal sleep.


End file.
